


best friends means you get what you deserve

by disasterboys



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alcohol, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Choking, Dubious Consent, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Interpersonal Conflict, M/M, Other, POV Alternating, Post Break Up, Trauma, Weed, Wounds, ambrollins - Freeform, bad break up, cursing, dean and seth, deathwish, interpersonal violence, light gore, mention of implied sexual relationship, romanticized violence, sad pretty boys with self destructive tendencies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-03-30 13:55:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3939322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disasterboys/pseuds/disasterboys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>just another angsty dean and seth fic featuring them as sad pretty boys with poor impulse control, violent impulses, and serious emotional problems tbh</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer:
> 
> This is a work of fiction based on interpretations of characters and concepts that do not belong to me.
> 
> As a fictional work, this piece isn't meant to reflect reality at all - and it is not a reflection on any of the actual people who portray these characters.
> 
> As a fictional work, it is also not meant to harm or upset anyone. 
> 
> This piece contains potentially upsetting themes so please check out the tags and content warnings before reading, if that's something you feel like you need to do.
> 
> \-- 
> 
> CONTENT WARNING:
> 
> cw for canon-typical violence, drugs (weed / marijuana), alcohol, bad break up, conflict, interpersonal violence, implied mutually abusive relationship, dubious consent, romanticized violence, lack of respect for personal boundaries, cursing, descriptions of neurodivergence (mental illness), trauma, dissociation, self harm, 
> 
> will add other content warnings, tags, etc as needed

 

  
\--  
  
(Seth)

**\--  
**

  
Seth looks at himself in the mirror, but not really.   
It’s more like he’s looking through himself, at nothing in particular.   
  
He doesn’t really recognize the face in his reflection.

At this point, it’s easier to recognize that constant distant feeling, the achey-pain in his stomach or the buzzing in his head as himself than whoever’s looking back at him.

There’s something empty-hollow about those eyes, that smile and seth stares through it and through him and doesn’t feel or know or see anything really, let alone himself.  


His hair is wet from the shower still and it’s all dark roots and grow out by now, but the blonde bits are still there. They’re a reminder: a part of him that feels to permanent when nothing stays still in his life anymore. Everything has moved too fast over the past few months and time has no concept, but somehow Seth still looks the same.

Different - but the same. It doesn’t sit right with him.  
  
Still just Seth with his bad idea hair and sick kicked-puppy eyes and *that* smile.  
  
Maybe if his hair wasn’t such a part of his look - his gimmick, his brand - at this point, then he would just cover all that blonde up, but he’s gotta stay consistent to stay marketable and that fucks him up.

Everything fucks him up anymore.  


Fuck, Seth thinks and breathes out real long and slow.  
  
Fuck.  
  
And what about Dean?

Dean was the same - Seth is sure of it. He doesn't need to talk to him to know. He doesn't need to talk to him ever again to know that.  
   
Dean hadn’t changed and he was still so much different than Seth, he had to be.

If they were more similar to each other then it might be easier for Seth to actually hate him. But he can’t hate Dean no matter how hard he had tried to make himself, couldn’t really ever hate Dean the way he wanted to.

Fuck. Thinking about any of that only makes Seth’s stomach ache worse.  
The tiniest throb of adrenaline and his heart pumps loud and thready and his head buzzes light and his toes curl hard.  
  
It makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up, to think about Dean.   
  
He feels real and present for a second.  
His stomach tightens and flips and his mouth waters on instinct and it makes Seth wanna be in the ring, hand-in-glove and powerful. And he wants it bad.   
  
It’s his time. It’s Seth’s time. He’s the man now.  
It’s Seth’s time.   
Seth’s time, but he’s not going to be meeting Dean Ambrose in the ring anytime soon.

That thought should be a comfort but it’s not at all and Seth grits his teeth, clenches his fist hard and digs his nails into his palm.

He looks back into the mirror for a second, shakes his head, pulls his shower-damp hair into a loose bun,  -- ‘get yourself together, Rollins’, Seth thinks, but the voice in his head doesn’t sound like his own.  


Shuffling out of the bathroom, Seth lays down on the sterile hotel bed but doesn’t even bother getting under the starched-stiff blankets -  he knows he isn’t going to be able to sleep any time soon and he’s idly reminded of why he’s been avoiding mirrors so much lately. Avoiding thinking. His stomach hurts and all of him feels knotted up and empty.

The clock on the bedside table says a quarter to three in the morning and Seth wishes he had some bud.

Seth hasn’t been able to reliably get weed for months now, probably longer. Probably since he and Dean... well, he doesn't want to think about that.  
  
He’s not supposed to smoke, he knows that, but it never stopped him before and he’s almost sure that Hunter would be willing to look the other way at this point if he could just play his cards right. And if not - its not like Seth hasn’t been on the wrong end of Hunter being pissed before.

But there’s no one for him to pick up from.   
Seth doesn’t really have any friends outside the roster anymore. And he’s not exactly well-liked on the roster, even within the Authority.

He thinks he could maybe ask around the locker room and backstage anyway, but knows better. What good could that do? His reputation as a rat doesn’t exactly do him any favors, there, either.   
  
And he’s just so sick, sick in his heart in his head and he’s so tired. He wants to feel good and warm and stoned-safe and curl up in bed and watch netflix on his laptop until he falls asleep. And he just can’t.

Seth thinks about Dean again even though he doesn't want to. Thinks about how Dean can roll a joint without looking at his hands and he remembers the sealed up mason jars in Dean’s duffle bag filled with sweet/sour smelling bud that Seth didn’t know the name of and Dean’s bum shoulder that never stops hurting.  
  
Seth thinks about how Dean made smoking pot and all look so easy, safe warm natural, not at all like Dean’s drinking; not at all like the tense conversations secrets and hushed voices; and not at all like bruised knuckles drawing blood and every other goddamn thing between them.

Seth thinks about Dean and needs to get stoned.  
It’s been months and months now. It’s been over a year. It's been so long. Since what?  
He doesn’t wanna think it or say it.

  
  
‘Get yourself together, Rollins’, he thinks again, but that voice in his head still doesn’t sound like his own. He tries to place it, shakes his head and brushes it off.

Picking up his phone, he can feel his fingers vibrating shaky and he drums them against the screen for a moment. Seth starts typing out a message but his fingers aren’t cooperating and it takes so long. His head buzzes warm electric and he wishes Dean were here in spite of himself. There’s a small hope somewhere in the back of Seth's head but it’s in the shape of something that will be sure to hurt him.

He hopes Dean hasn’t changed his number.  
  
He reads it back to himself,  - ‘Hey ambrose can you get me a bag ???’, - and presses send without thinking anymore about it. He sighs, feels momentarily self satisfied and hollow-confident.

Seth still doesn’t know what to do now, though. He feels the room shift and is at once pleased and disgusted with himself. He laughs that laugh that isn’t quite his either and he doesn’t know why because there’s no one around to hear it.   
  
  
  
He sets the phone on the pillow next to him and rolls over to the clean white-washed quiet of the hotel room.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING:
> 
> cw for canon-typical violence, blood, wounds, sharps (broken glass), cigarettes, smoking, drugs (weed / marijuana), alcohol, bad break up, conflict, interpersonal violence, i mplied mutually abusive relationship, dubious consent, romanticized violence, lack of respect for personal boundaries, cursing, descriptions of neurodivergence (mental illness), trauma, dissociation, self harm, repetition

\--

(Dean)

\--  
  
It’s mid-morning and Dean is sleeping off a bender in a shitty motel room.  
He could afford better probably, but why bother?   
He doesn’t feel like he deserves any better and besides that, he feels more comfortable here anyhow.

At places like this, no one ever asks any questions. 

No one ever recognizes him.  
  
And no one really cares if he pukes on the carpet, or ugly cries screaming drunk at 3 am, or breaks a full length mirror with his bare knuckled fist and bleeds all over the sheets for the rest of the night.   
  
No one cares if he busts his piece of shit cell phone against the wall until the screen cracks or if he leaves cigarette burns on the arm chair upholstery from passing out with a smoke in his hand - so long as he pays his bill, checks out on time, and leaves the staff alone.

Which he does.  
  
  
Dean wakes up with a start from something that must have been a nightmare but he can’t remember (he never does).

He’s flat in bed, waking up in his clothes, curled awkwardly with his arms under him and it’s the pain that hits him first. The sunlight streaming in through the broken blinds is too bright but his mind is hot with the pain before anything else. 

He real slowly registers where he’s at - a motel room, a particularly shitty one. It’s the kind he likes to go to so he can break bottles and be alone and otherwise fuck up some more.   
  
And Dean can’t remember shit and his whole body aches.

He rolls over onto his back and his body shifts and hurts more. His hand’s fucked up, he knows that much.

His mouth tastes like copper-sweet - it’s blood, his blood -  and he opens his eyes slow, sits up, props himself against the wall to suddenly be looking directly at his reflection in the shattered mirror resting awkwardly against the wall next to him.

Shattered glass layers the floor around it. Some of it’s in the bed, too.

“Oh goddamn it”.

Looking down, the front of his tattered white undershirt is mottled with blotches of (his) blood.

His right hand is haphazardly wrapped up tight in another one of his undershirts, ripped into strips and soaked red all the way through, clotted heavy in parts.

“Oh goddamn it”.

  
He unwraps it gingerly but it hurts, it really does.   
His knuckles underneath are crusted dark red split open, bruised and uneven swollen, but there’s no glass in it that he can see, so he must’ve taken care of it last night.

Dean rolls his shoulders and kind of shrugs and is just grateful for that little bit of foresight.   
  
He clenches and unclenches his fist, and is convinced that it’s not broken. It’s nothing he hasn’t dealt with countless times before.  
  
At least there’s that.

But that’s not really satisfying.

Dean wants to start drinking again, but knows he can’t so he just rolls awkwardly out of bed and half-crawls to dig out the case of bottled water from his duffel bag and drinks most of a bottle in one long go, then immediately fumbles for the crushed pack of cigarettes between all the broken glass on the floor.

Holding a cigarette between his teeth, Dean lights it with his good hand more steady than he thought he would be.   
  
He slumps down to the floor, his back to the wall.

There’s the familiar crunch of broken glass underneath him, but he slept in his jeans and street shoes again anyway, so he’s not too worried. Everything moves slow and distant, and too bright. Dean can’t think of what day it is but it feels like sunday, classic sunday, in some sort of fucked nostalgic way.

He reaches with his good hand towards his cell phone. It’s lying down on the floor with all the broken glass too - he picks it up and the screen is cracked and smeared with Dean’s blood but somehow still functional and it turns on alright.  
  


“Oh Jesus Christ.”

He breathes out slow long and checks his phone without thinking. Force of habit even though he knows no one called.

It’s hard to see through the cracked screen, but he can make it all out okay.  
Something’s not right, though. His hands start shaking hard from memory.

There’s two missed calls.  
Both from Seth Rollins.  
And even worse, there’s a voicemail.

In rapid disbelief he checks his outgoing calls - just to be safe, just to be sure - and there it is: an outgoing call to Seth Rollins’ phone at 3:03 am.

“Goddamn it.” he almost throws the phone again. “Goddamn it. Shit. Fuck.”

He still can’t remember anything from the night before past working his way through a fifth of bottom-shelf whiskey before moving onto the two six packs he brought as back up.  
  
Dean still cannot remember shit but he looks through his texts quickly and  - just before 3 am -  there’s two texts from Seth-fucking-Rollins: one asking Dean to hook him up with a bag of weed and another about ten minutes later with the address for a chain hotel and a room number and nothing else.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Dean runs his hand over his face, through his hair, lets his fingernails run a little to rough down the back of his neck.

It’s too easy to put the pieces together. He does it almost too quickly and still barely remembers a thing. He has the impression of calling Seth after getting that second text, but that’s it.  
  
Well, that - and he can remember the feeling of it all. The white light feeling of drunk hot self righteous fury and he can’t even imagine what he could have said. Can’t gauge how pissed he’d been.

Biting his lip hard he checks the voicemail and its Seth’s voice and it sounds a way that Dean hasn’t heard it sound in over a year and it turns his guts immediately

Seth’s voice is somehow small, gravely, far away, urgent if it could be but too tired for that:

“ _Dean? Dean, fuck bro, I didn’t know you were drinking again and I shouldn’t have done this. I’m sorry, I’m sorry,_ “

  
Seth sounds like he’s crying on the other end of the line, apologizing and choking back something heavy in his throat. Seth sounds like he’s crying.  
  
  
Dean plays it back just to be sure. And again. And one more time.

Seth sounds like he’s crying.  
Dean can't move past it. Why not? Why not?  
Seth sounds like he’s crying.

Dean wonders what he’d said to him and just doesn’t know and hates himself for it, but he bites that feeling back, chews his lip hard.  
  
Whatever he said last to him night, Seth deserved it. Dean knows that much.   
He sighs hard again his head is spinning.  
  
How dare he, Dean thinks, letting himself be more angry than sad, at least for now. He wants to get up and pace around because he thinks better when he’s moving but he’s so damn tired. 

How dare he how dare he ??  
  
  
Rollins.  
Fucking Rollins.  
  
This is so awful. So awful and so very much like Seth to be this desperate pathetic-ugly, but it still knocks the wind right out of Dean’s chest.

Seth might as well have kicked him square in the ribs all over again, once more, for fun, for old time’s sake.

Dean makes his hands into fists, calm like and easy, but it still sends shock waves of pain up through his bloodied hand. The dried blood cracks beneath the make-shift bandage and his nerves surge and he smiles sick lightheaded relieved, but its not like any of this feels good.

Not good, just familiar.   
It’s like he can smell it all on his skin already - everything he knows is coming - it’s like the calm before a fever dream.

How dare Seth do this?  
  
  
Dean gets up and paces and paces and paces then starts kicking stuff around, picking up the pieces of his stuff that’s scattered across the room. He’s favoring his hand but he’s already moving too fast to really notice it anyway.  
  
How fucking dare Seth do this.  
  
  
How dare he when he knows exactly how Dean is going to react, when he knows exactly what Dean’s going to do - and he’s gotta know.   
  
How dare Seth do this and then act like a kicked puppy when Dean gets angry. It doesn’t matter what Dean said.

Like, did Seth really think that Dean would actually want to just drop everything and hold Seth’s hand and get him drugs in the middle of the fucking night on a weekday?

Or wake up mid-hang-over and way too early and rush to Seth’s bedside because Seth is _*sorry*_ now. Of course he’s sorry. Seth was always real good at being sorry.  
  
  
Dean’s got all his stuff together before he knows it, new cigarette lit, and his sunglass on, oversized threadbare black sweater and he’s stepping out into the two-bright morning arid already in the dry desert heat.

  
He’s gotta walk down some bendy concrete stairs to get to his car and his equilibrium is no where to be found as he steadies himself against the warm cracked stucko of the hotel wall, shifting his weight between steps. But there's something pulling him forward with a purpose he never asked for.

He checks out.  
Pays with cash.  
Doesn’t leave a name.  
Smiles manic-ugly behind his dark sunglasses as he apologizes for the mess.

He gets to his car and gets in, pops the glove box and eagerly shakes out two pills from one of the several pills bottles in the compartment and takes them dry, winces, coughs, sighs hard and heavy but there’s no real relief to it.

Rollins has gotten him this shook up already and it’s not even 9 am yet.

He turns awkwardly to rattle around in the backseat to find the backpack that he keeps his weed and shit in, unzips it, zips it back up, and tosses it back to the floor board.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gosh  
> um  
> thanks everyone for reading <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> small note to reader: 
> 
> this update is considerably longer than the two previous ones (and i hope it's not so long that it becomes tedious), but it's just how the length ended up. 
> 
> also, there's some more overt themes (and descriptions) of violence and interpersonal conflict in this chapter - so check the content warning and tags if you need + proceed w/ caution 
> 
>  
> 
> \--
> 
> content warning:
> 
> cw for canon-typical violence, drugs (weed / marijuana), alcohol (w/ implied alcohol abuse), bad break up, conflict, interpersonal violence, implied mutually abusive relationship, dubious consent, romanticized violence, lack of respect for personal boundaries, cursing, descriptions of neurodivergence (mental illness), trauma, dissociation, self harm, mention of implied sexual relationship, blood, wounds, light gore, vague nonsexual violence kink implications

**\--  
  
** ( ** _Seth_** )  
  
**\--  
  
**

Seth didn’t sleep worth a damn during the night and it’s not like he’s surprised or anything.  
  
He messed up real bad and knows it and he feels bad.  
Seth thinks he maybe deserves to feel bad - maybe he deserves way worse than that.

And he can’t get what Dean said out of his head.   
He just can’t.  
And he deserves that too, probably.

And Dean - well, Dean had said a lot of things last night. And it isn’t like Seth was surprised by any of it, really. How could he be - most of that stuff he’d heard before, anyway; not all of it, but still.

Seth has seen Dean angry a lot. During the old days, during that in-between time. After everything.

He’s seen Dean so so angry -  at others, at himself, at Roman, at Seth. Anger because of being too fucked up or not fucked up enough. Too much to list.  
  
Not that Seth doesn’t have a hell of a temper too; but Seth’s temper is deliberate and cold-creeping, invested elegant and sharp, sewn from self preservation. Instead, Dean moves in all directions, is an angry river’s mouth, a flood to himself.   
  
On good terms or not, Dean could switch into that in a heartbeat, could turn on you like a brush fire, bite and claw and spit - he could cut someone down to size and never even lay a hand on them in the process if he didn’t want to.   
  
When they fought - or just talked -  after all that shit went down between them, it only ever got worse and worse..

  
Seth sighs, ties his hair back again.  
  
He messed up.  
He feels manipulative and dirty, like he's made out of all his old tricks and nothing else.   
Dean always had some obvious buttons and maybe they were too easy to push and Seth knows that. And maybe Seth had fallen back into pushing them without even realizing it. Typical.

And on top of that, Dean is drinking again. 

Fuck. Seth thinks -  how could Dean be drinking again? 

He doesn't want to care, but his body heavy feeling says that he does. Seth feels responsible for that too, but doesn’t know if he should and he’s disgustedly self-aware and his body feels iron-anchored to the bed.

He flicks at the plain thick rubber band around his left wrist -  one two, three, Very casually, each one harder than the last. They sting and hit the welts leftover from a night of not sleeping and snapping it against his wrist - one, two, three - to calm himself down in the cool empty dark. The pain blends into the next in quick succession. He wishes it was louder.

  
But it’s not.

And there’s just him and what Dean said, what he said, what he said. And it won’t leave him alone.

  
‘ _I wish you were dead, Seth. You hear that, you son of a bitch? I wish you were fucking dead._ ”   
  
And Seth didn’t argue. He couldn’t. He let Dean go on until the line clicked quiet on the other end. Then called back and apologized and groveled pretty-sad eyed over the phone, all the same steps all over again.

Dean never picked up the phone and hadn’t said anything else, hadn’t called back and what did Seth even expect?

Still, he’d hid his championship under the bed and left the door unlocked all night just in case.

But what did he really expect?

  
And now it’s 9 in the morning and he hasn’t slept at all he’s just sitting up in that stiff clean hotel bed, knees curled around him and snapping that rubber band hard. He’s scared but he can’t place where the fear is coming from or why.

Dean had told Seth once - during this worst of it, before they stopped talking altogether - that he was going to haunt him and Seth had never really taken that seriously before but what the fuck else is this? There’s a ghost in Seth’s lungs, a voice in his head that was never his to begin with.

The air conditioner switches on automatically and the sudden noise knocks the wind right out of him.

He’s trying desperately not to think about Hunter, trying not to think about Steph, trying not to think about how livid they would be if they knew how bad he’d fucked up last night.  

And of course, trying not to think about Dean and maybe he can push everything else from his mind right now but not *that*, and not last night, not *him*.

Before everything got bad last year, Dean had quit drinking. Maybe for good, Seth thought.   
  
It wasn’t his business then, Seth reminds himself; it’s not his business now..

But last night Seth could almost hear broken glass in Dean’s voice over the phone and he thought about all the times Dean had roughed him up a little too much after one too many drinks and all the petty lies it took to hide that shit. The thought feels warm to Seth now, - thinking about Dean’s whiskey-breath, Dean bird-mad-determined beyond reasoning, cold hands around Seth’s throat, his face beneath Dean’s fists, cracked ribs, blood in his mouth - Seth salivates in spite of himself.

The thought feels shaped like what home should be,  
His memory’s got the quick color of  late summer night, fireflies, moon-drunk - Seth’s got wings in his chest and he doesn’t want to remember anymore - doesn’t want to feel this way.

What’s wrong with him?

Dirty sick feeling.   
He wants to shower again, for the second time today, but snaps the rubber band hard hard hard again instead.

  
There’s a sharp knock on the door and Seth is startled again but it barely registers this time. He breathes calm and pretends he’s ready, doesn’t even look to see who it is, just opens the door without thinking.

 

* * *

 

\--

  
( ** _Dean_** )  
  
\--  
  


Seth looks sick.

Dean’s not sure how exactly. he just doesn’t look *right*.

He’s clean and his clothes are clean and fit him okay but his face is sallow pale-gold and his cheeks are sunken and his are dark squid ink and they make dean’s head swim; seth looks unreal.   
  
Dean shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be here.  
He shouldn’t be here.  
  
Dean can feel his throat close up, and maybe it’s tears choking in the back of it - and over what? over what? - and he’s panicked sad guilty angry.  
  
He hasn’t said a goddamn word.

Neither has Seth. Seth’s eyes just shoot up to dean’s face and then down to the floor and back again.  

“I shouldn’t be here” Dean says and he knows it took him too long to say it at all, but he falls back into some kind of rhythm too easy, “And you look like fucking hell.”

Seth just rubs his eyes and breathes in for a long time and squeezes the bridge of his nose hard, drops his head down.

Seth sighs, looks up at Dean wide eyed and starts to close the door without saying anything. Dean shoves his foot in, presses his luck, pries the door lightly and gently pushes himself inside.

Stepping inside the hotel room is disjointed deja vu.

Seth doesn’t say anything still, doesn’t protest.  
  
He backs slowly into the room until the backs of his knees bump against the edge of the bed and he kind of half-falls into a sitting position. He’s wearing boxers and a t-shirt and nothing else and it’s obvious this is unexpected and it makes Dean even more annoyed. Seth curls his legs up underneath him crossed awkward and maybe its defensive but it looks real vulnerable all one fluid motion like  - deliberate, practiced.

“Jesus christ, Seth, i’m not gonna fuck you.”  

There are bruises on Seth’s legs, on his arms. Dean pretends not to notice.  
  
“What?” Seth asks and if he’s in disbelief he doesn’t show it. His voice is quiet and Dean can’t tell if its in contempt or disgust or fear.

“I’m not here to fuck you.” Dean reiterates himself, calm and matter-of-fact but it feels like neither.

Seth looks away. ‘i’m not asking for that.’ he says and it’s pure indignance this time.

Dean just laughs. He’s more amused than he thought he’d be, small shock to the system. “I know you’re not.” laughs again. ‘You better fucking not be.”

He laughs again, but nothing’s funny - sticks his tongue out, refuses to play his hand.   
  
Maybe Dean could have fun here, maybe for a minute.   
It doesn’t have to be like before, he thinks, and smiles.  
  
But he doesn’t really know why he’s here and he’s laughing just to hide how uncomfortable he is - to try to blend his anger into the rest of his feelings. To keep Seth from crying again, maybe. Fuck, he doesn’t know why.

Dean walks across the room to the balcony and opens the shitty wire framed plate glass door to get air flow. Pulling the half crushed pack of smokes from his pocket, he gestures to Seth with a quick “D’ya mind?”

Seth shakes his head no, “Go ahead.”  
  
He lights his smoke. The novelty of being in Seth’s hotel room is wearing off - Dean’s bouncing on his heels. Trying to hide it.

“Didn’t know you were smoking again, either”, Seth says almost to himself.

Dean takes a long drag of his cigarette before acknowledging seth said anything at all. 

“Yeah well my nerves ain’t so good, y’know.” he doesn’t look back from the balcony and laughs loud again, real genuine loud.

“Yeah”, Seth says but this time he looks right at Dean. “i know.”  


The air in the room weighs heavy and Dean is burning inside. He can feel Seth’s eyes stick to him.

He keeps rolling his shoulders loose awkward under his sweater and he wonders if seth can tell.

Its taking a lot to keep his voice even and his hands still and he wonders if seth can tell.

His insides are rolling too, lulling together, feet light. Dean’s on the edge of fight or flight and he knows why and doesn’t know why all at once.

It’s just Seth, he thinks. Puffs his cigarette, remembers to breathe.  It’s just Seth.  
It is just Seth - and that’s kind of exactly what Dean has to worry about.

There’s a long pause and Dean drags his cigarette all slow-deliberate again, blows the smoke up and over Seth on the bed. “I shouldn’t be here.” Dean says one more, like it’s something solid or like it means anything at all.

He has to keep coming back to it, though. It’s the only thing that makes sense to say. Everything else is too close or too far away.

“Then why are you here?”

The smoke moves around Seth. It settles in the air and his breath pushes it all around him when he speaks or sighs. He doesn’t look any less unreal to Dean now. The light’s streaming over them from the balcony. Everything is cool gold blue. Dean’s cigarette is winding down.

“Ya know, I don’t fucking know why i’m here, Seth.” Dean puts his cigarette out. he can feel himself starting in, body revving. “Maybe you can tell me that. Maybe you can tell me what you’re doing texting me at 3 in the goddamn morning on a weekday asking to get you pot.”

“Well, you’re here.”

“Yeah, I’m here. I’m here alright and it fucks me up, Seth.” Dean taps frantically at his head a few times with his fingertips like he’s trying to knock loose what he wants to say, “Because like I said -  I’m not here to fuck you. But I’m not here to punch you in the face or fight you or put you in your place, either, so you can forget that, too.”

Seth flinches when Dean talks.

Dean takes a second to breathe.   
Maybe he’s considering letting Seth say something, but he doesn’t want to hear seth talk.  
  
“I don’t know what you want, Seth, but this is fucked. And it’s not going to be on me. Ididn’t do this shit. Don’t put this on me. It wasn’t me this time.”

Dean’s voice is loud but wavering, driven towards losing its direction and he has to turn away and face the balcony and the morning to breathe breathe breathe some more. His hands won’t stay still and he fumbles at the cigarettes in his pocket but why would he stay longer?

In the other sweater pocket is a crumpled small paper bag and in that is Seth’s weed.   
Well, it’s Dean’s weed.  
Meant for Seth.   
  
  
He takes it out and throws it on the bed.  
  
“Here’s your fucking weed.” Dean starts to walk out across the room. Seth still hasn’t said anything worthwhile. Dean make some sort of ugly unsatisfied noise in his throat and this all feels like a mistake.

Seth chokes on his voice for the longest time but as Dean’s about to leave he manages ‘hey, thanks” then stumbles some more --- “Dean, wait, I’m ---”

 

* * *

 

**  
\--**

( ** _Seth_** )

**\--**

 

The words die in his throat as soon as Dean turns around.

Seth can feel it coming before it happens but he can’t do anything to change it.  
  
He almost doesn’t even move.  
  
He just clocks that look in Dean’s eyes. There is sick still quiet where the tension dissipates and in the moment before Dean’s fist lands against Seth’s face - as he’s coming full tilt across the room towards Seth -  everything just hangs.

With the first hit, Seth can hear his teeth sing.  
  
With the second there’s chimes in his ears.  
  
He thinks he is maybe trying to push dean off of him, but he can’t tell.   
  
Everything is a flurry of limbs,  a spinning blur and Dean’s cursing spitting-mad and soon he’s got his knees on either side of Seth, half-pinning his arms - keeping him still holding him in place- and it’s too familiar.

Seth feels something give a little between punches and he can taste blood in his mouth and it touches something in him and he flips a little. arches underneath Dean. Seth smiles sick crazy and his teeth feel sweet copper slick and ugly and Dean's eyes read so angry, so angry.  
 

There is a brief pause and they look at each other and both breathe hard and Seth gives a little more struggle. Dean looks at his injured hand for a second, assesses the damage, and down back to Seth -  who notices for the first time that Dean’s knuckles are covered in cuts and they’re busted open bleeding, too, and the blood runs down the length of Dean’s arm.   
  
And drips.  
  
Dean half shrugs, winces, hits Seth hard again, says something that Seth can’t hear and Seth is almost sure he can feel Dean’s blood land on his face, warm, fleeting, mix with his own.   
  
The edges of Seth’s vision start to blur red like there’s blood there, too/  It feels like everything quiet secret unknowable  is leaking out into the hotel between them - inside, outside, burning.

There’s another pause between punches and Seth idly wonders just whose blood he can taste in his mouth.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING:
> 
> cw for canon-typical violence, weed / marijuana, alcohol, bad break up, conflict, interpersonal violence, implied mutually abusive relationship, dubious consent, romanticized violence, lack of respect for personal boundaries, cursing, trauma, dissociation, self harm, choking / asphyxiation, deathwish mention / discussion, gore text, 
> 
> will add other content warnings, tags, etc as needed

( Seth )   
\--

Seth’s eyes are wet - warm with blood spatter from all the cuts and splits on his face and mouth, but with tears too -  and he doesn’t want Dean to see because he never cries, at least not like this. And he doesn’t want Dean to see; he doesn’t want to *ruin* it, ruin this, whatever this is.

Seth can taste Dean on him; in him.   
His lip is split bad and his cheek is too maybe, but Seth cannot place anything besides the taste. Him and Dean. Dean and him. Sure, Seth wants to cry but it’s not that easy. He’s not angry yet, and only sort of scared. Later, that will change, and he’ll probably be all rage or retribution but then the anger will die down and the fear will kick in like always.

But for now he is flying, floating, pressed under Dean - whose face and hands are a flurry above him + against him, blending rainbow-black into one pain after another, blood splatter - and Seth is pressing hard back into it; back arched, defiant, begging.

Seth smiles and he can feel Dean spit on him more than he can actually see it, like its insult to injury but its nothing like that at all. He wants more, he wants more, they both just…. want. Dean is cursing a lot, saying fuck a lot and then Seth’s name and then other words that Seth doesn’t want to think about, but it doesn’t stop. The words don’t stop and Dean doesn’t ever stop barrelling into Seth. Dean shifts his weight, pinning him harder, whether it’s seconds or minutes or longer, neither of them know, and now Seth isn’t even sure if he’s fighting back anymore. Everything is in waves, in stereo, crashing and repeating, and Dean’s punching Seth in the gut; urging his flesh towards bruising when and where he can. It feels like the edges of Seth’s skin burn in the places where Dean’s not touching him, where Dean’s fists can’t reach or where he’s not pinned to the bed with the weight of Dean’s body.

There’s a momentary pause filled up with nothing but pure late morning. Still. And breathing.

Dean puts his good hand around Seth’s throat and squeezes.

Seth wonders something but he’s not sure what.

Seth sighs but it is small wet gurgled instead, choked-breathless into the ball of Dean’s hand against the base of his throat.  He can feel the oxygen draining from him - leaving his face and blood and lungs and it rings golden choir in his head as it leaves and somehow there’s a kind of whitenoise peace to that. Dean’s eyes are real blue and everything is feeling easier.

He thinks he could die like this, insides ready to be spilt out and telling. He hopes against hope that it happens, sweet slow romantic death - all fuzzy with the blood and then more and then nothing. He hopes that it happens and he can feel himself, feel his whole body start to go far-away-limp and Dean’s eyes are so blue and Dean is smiling just as far-away, half-laughing into all the blood.

Even though it is late morning, Seth’s got that displaced crimson-twilight moon-drunk feeling he remembers and there’s tears there too, somewhere in the back of his throat  And then just Dean Dean Dean bearing down.

And then there is no weight at all.  
No flurry of limbs. No strangulation climax.   
Dean is up against the wall opposite the foot of the bed and seth slowly sits up. His vision comes back but that doesn’t really phase him. Seth’s just shaking and he breathing hard.

He can see that Dean’s eyes are glazed over pretty and still.

Dean’s repeating ‘fuck fuck fuck fuck’ to himself, sometimes ‘Seth Seth’, and he is like he always is in this sort of afterglow: glassy eyed and gorgeous. Familiar dissociative darling.

Seth feels the bruises forming on his neck and he’s so happy he could cry but has to hide that too and he’s horrified of himself as much as anything else

 

\--

( Dean ) 

\--  
  


Dean hadn’t wanted to hit Seth.  
On one hand, well, of course he had wanted to hit Seth.   
But not then and not like that. He didn’t really want to do it.

It just, it all fit like a glove. Everything.

Dean had felt so small dirty used helpless -- with Seth’s weed in his busted up hand and his good one curled hard into a fist hidden under an over-sized sweater sleeve fight-or-flight triggered quietly and Seth’s stupid scared face staring back at him. Oh, goddamn, Seth had looked all fake tough but really asking for it all over again and Dean could hear in his head all the things that Seth was probably thinking. He could hear Seth’s petty fear and his wanton self-endangerment: Dean could feel Seth’s face give a little under his fist before he ever laid his hands on him.

The heavy twitch in Dean’s bad shoulder was acting like a nervous-system-omen and Seth’s stupid face was victim-ready + gold flushed pale with his angry eyes --  stubborn pretty boy, oh Seth, and Dean could only then really think of the feeling of the steel chair in Seth’s hands - the way it felt on his back and neck and head again again again and the thousand other things that Seth had done and how stupid ugly Seth was in that moment torn between angry, afraid, and something else.

And Dean could only think of how many times Seth had tried to put him away, or have hime put away, how many broken bottles and bones and promises scatter the floor between them and in years going on and on in both directions. The thousand other things that Seth had done, too much to list and each one more muddled painful than the last and now seth was just staring back across the room at Dean -  stuttering, subdued, and beautiful -  and Dean knew, some nameless part of him knew, that Seth was waiting patiently for that fist - Dean’s fist - against his face.

And Dean, well, he didn’t want to disappoint - in spite of himself and his shaky bones and what’s left of his better judgement.

He could fucking tear Seth apart and he was going to, the decision had already been made but it wasn’t like a decision at all, more like circumstances and fate and that kind of thing that makes Dean’s head hurt confused to think about.  And besides, there wasn’t anyone there to stop him, no one there to drag Dean back into the light of day. He hoped seth got angry enough to try and dangle him off that fourth floor balcony or bash his head against the counter.

Dean kicked the door shut before anything else.

\--

When Dean is on top of Seth just a short time later and Seth is pinned struggling underneath him, Dean cannot notice anything besides how much he wants to beat Seth into the canvas (even tho they aren’t in the ring).

But then he sees the obvious self harm marks on Seth’s arms and legs at first as he’s fighitng back hard and it’s all flashing flailing limbs leaving tracers of tiny scars and new dark deep cuts and bruises in the air around both of them. This pushes a button in Dean that he doesn’t understand and it makes his mind hot like the air, hot like the dried cracked desert mud at home where Dean dreams of being. And he’s pissed that Seth has been cutting himself and he’s pissed that he knows and that he cares but he doesn’t know why, doesnt realize any of that right now.

And his fingers are wrapped around Seth’s throat and squeezing hard before he means to do any of it at all, same old routine

\--

It’s over before it begins and Dean is backed up off of Seth, scrambling backwards until he bumps hard against the wall and draws his knees fast against him and wraps his bloody hands all up in the towel from off the floor - the one that’s still damp from Seth’s shower and still thick with the smell of Seth’s hair.

Seth sits up real slow, and Dean can kinda see the air returning to Seth’s face, his color come back red/gold, he can feel Seth’s eyes on him again before he feels anything else before anything else registers, Dean knows that seth is looking at him, reading him, waiting.

Dean’s eyes are pale empty and he knows that too sort of and he knows Seth can’t stop looking at them - at him. It doesn’t matter. Where dean was frantic before, he’s started to slow down now, and he’s rocking back and forth almost gentle-like, purposeful with bloody towel in hand.

Dean’s cigarettes must have fallen out of his sweater pocket during the scuffle because Seth is moving about dean’s peripheral vision and soon he’s saying Dean’s name gently and handing him his crushed up pack of smokes and a lighter, like he’s doing it without thinking, like Seth’s not even angry at Dean. Like its not even about logic or even comfort or what makes sense, like Seth just *gets it* even though he doesn’t want to.

Dean doesn’t think about it, he doesn’t say anything - what would he say anyway - and takes them and when he does, he can see that Seth’s fingers are drying with blood too.

Dean’s hands are shaking.  
Everything felt so solid a few minutes ago.  
He lights a smoke but there is blood on his hands and now his bloody finger prints are on the lighter next to Seth’s bloody fingerprints and there is blood on the cigarette too and when he takes a drag and pulls it away his lips leave bloody ghost-prints on the filter and it’s disgusting and fitting.

Dean’s teeth are stained red with blood and almost-chattering and this - times like this - are the only time when he feels alive and he fucking hates that.

This would be easier if they were in the ring. If they’d been in the ring, everything would make sense. None of what’s happening makes any sense, though, and Dean’s body is slowed down to a whisper, a crawl, but Dean’s brain is running-running-running trying to keep up with what he thinks Seth’s motives are - or could be. He can taste Seth’s blood in his mouth, and he doesn’t even know how but he knows it’s not just his, remembers the taste.

‘Fuck. Fuck.’  
The room is spinning. This is a lot of blood. and although he should be totally used to it, Dean feels like he could puke or pass out, or both, honestly, and he’s pissed at himself for that, and he puffs his cigarette.  He’s angry at seth too, that Seth is so damn calm and present, so serene looking, like he got what he wanted. Dean can’t bring himself to meet Seth’s gaze straight on. When does he get what he wants?

Everything’s hollow and there’s still no sense of satisfaction and it’s so early in the morning still - though it must be later than it feels - and Dean’s head hurts a lot  
  
\--

  
“Fuck.”

“Fuck.”

Dean can’t bring himself to say anything else for a long, long time. They both sit mostly quietly through a few cigarettes. Dean crumples the empty pack without thinking about it. Seth is quiet and sitting and moving shuffling around dean’s peripheral vision at times again, and Dean checks out hard, smokes his last cigarette real slowly.

After a while Seth’s voice come back low and gentle and he asks Dean something but it’s not even words just noise. “Dean. Dean?”

But then seth is taking the lighter out of Dean’s hand and there’s the slick noise and then spark and then the smell of good warm weed and Dean couldn’t be more surprised. Seth hands Dean the least convincing joint he’s ever seen, but it’s burning beautiful somehow and Dean hits it for a long time and leaves the tiny blood-prints on the tip of it where his lips touched it and Seth takes it from him and doesn’t seem to mind one bit because he hits it long awkward too and passes it back and things almost seem…. normal.

Normal fucked up.  
Normal fucked up and funny.  
But not the kind of funny that you would ever laugh at, the kind of funny that is resonating in Dean’s ears as much as it is his heart and gut and bad shoulder and he doesn’t know if it feels good or not as much as it feels familiar.

Dean looks down at the joint between his bloody fingernails, hands shaking, and he’s scared the cherry might fall out of the tip of it because of how poorly Seth rolled the thing, with the paper not tight at all and bent in a weird way and it’s only burning because of the sheer amount of kind-of-torn-up bud that Seth was able to nervously stuff into it and Dean can’t help but be kind of amused.

Dean moves to pass the joint back to Seth and winces hard, hits it again before giving it back,  
'That’ he says thru the smoke ‘ has to be the goddamn worst rolled joint i’ve ever seen, Seth’.

Seth looks mortified for a second, but then dean blows his hit out smooth and tired and seth blows his hit out and coughs and they both laugh and nothing should feel this easy but it does.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING:
> 
> cw for canon-typical violence, weed / marijuana, alcohol, bad break up, conflict, interpersonal violence, implied mutually abusive relationship, dubious consent, romanticized violence, lack of respect for personal boundaries, cursing, trauma, dissociation, self harm, choking / asphyxiation, deathwish mention / discussion, gore text, kissing, displays of affection / displays of physical affection, 
> 
> will add other content warnings, tags, etc as needed

(Dean)  
\--  
  
The two of them finish smoking Seth’s joint.  
There’s a space between them that feels like it should be filled with awkward small talk but it isn’t, it’s just quiet; Dean slowly gets up.  
  
In the silence, he braces himself against the wall and shuffles awkwardly over the bed, and picks up all the weed stuff  - the couple mostly-full baggies and the natural joint papers and the hotel bible that Seth so cleverly rolled his emergency joint on - from next to Seth.

Dean leans his weight against the wall before sliding slowly back down the floor and it is obvious to Seth that Dean is in a lot of pain. Seth hides a smile in spite of himself and Dean doesn’t notice, says ‘fuck’ long and slow and calm as he settles himself against the hotel wall again and sets in.

Over the next little while Dean shreds a bunch of bud with his nervous fingertips bit-by-bit and casually rolls and stuffs a few large cone-shaped joints in a row, relatively smooth and beautiful looking. His fingers move methodically and with purpose even though his hands are shaking and his shoulders are rolling and he can’t actually sit still. Dean just rolls joint after joint with his bloody shaky hands and rocks gently back and forth and Seth is somehow able to keep his mouth shut and just watch because it’s all so perfect.

Eventually Dean lights one and they smoke in silence some more. Get high. Let the blood dry.

  
By the second joint, Dean starts talking, but he keeps rolling. Seth asks why and Dean says that they might need’em later, which is true, but it’s also because Dean desperately needs something to do with his hands and eyes and because he’s not sure whether to stay or run and getting stoned is a nice in-between.

  
Dean talks about weed. And he talks about Seth. And Seth talks about Dean. There’s not much to say, but they touch on what just happened, how fucked up it was and how cool it was and how it was like old times but not like good times. And how this is kind of like good times. They smoke more and there’s maybe a real nice genuine moment between them, stacked on top of all that resentment.

They develop a kind of rhythm after a while, where Dean leads and Seth follows, at least in conversation, at least for now. It’s the balancing act of small talk and diverted eye contact and inhaling, holding, breathing breathing breathing. Dean doesn’t want to think about what just happened anymore than he has to and he judges that based on how Seth is clinging to quiet but growing more and more comfortable in his body language that maybe Seth doesn’t either. And besides, Dean’s here now. He’s here with Seth and maybe that was just…. letting things settle.

He asks Seth if he’d like to start the next one, and Seth looks surprised that there would be a next one at all, that Dean’s not leaving, but he doesn’t look disappointed.

 

\--  
(Seth)

\--  
  
Seth takes the joint from Dean, and he feels almost proud of himself as he lights it but he doesn’t mean to feel that way. Seth feels that way for making it this far, lasting this long, being all cool headed and clammy palmed. He likes the feeling of the uneasy chill between him, like he could maybe be directing the unsteady traffic of their interactions - pulling the strings, making  plans, ever the architect - even if Dean’s not aware of it at all.

Seth is proud of himself but he doesn’t mean to be and he kind of hates when he gets like this because he can feel the inevitability of an upcoming mistake weigh heavy on his shoulders and he’s going to have to do something to make up for it and he wonders if Dean feels the same way.

Seth closes his eyes and takes bunch of long fluttery drags in a row.

Dean laughs and when Seth looks up through the smoke and over the cherry-tip to Dean’s smiling grey-blue eyes, he is suddenly indignant burning inside at Dean for no reason except that he loves him but he….can’t stand the sight of him and he would never say that word without a good reason and there isn’t one in sight.

Seth offers the joint back to Dean, but Dean waves him away with his hand and says ‘please’ in a gesture that can only mean it’s okay for Seth to take some more puffs, and he does. But the dissociative kindness and soft driven don’t-care-about-shit way Dean deals with Seth flips a switch in Seth’s gut and he sees opportunity and it makes him sick to not take it, so he sort of has to, and can feel himself falling backwards into something heavy and inviting.

Really, Seth, at this point, kind of just slips back into wanting to be mean to Dean.   
  
He wants to be mean as hell to him, wants to hurt him in pretty serious ways - plain and simple - and he mostly wants to do it for fun.   
  
But it is also very clear to some part of Seth that he wants payback for what just happened - his bruised ribs and labored breathing and bloody everything. Seth want his turn, his time. and he knows that he can take care of all that and have some fun in the process - fun with Dean, too - and maybe there’s time for something else, but once again he has to curtail himself before his mind wanders too much or he makes himself sick.

But maybe as Seth sits in that hotel room, joint in hand and Dean on that floor in front of him, this want starts to look more like a need.

And the novelty of that nice small-talk moment between them is more than worn off and Seth feels high and erratic and sharp and mean.

He hits the joint again and smiles back at Dean’s awkward, dissociated good mood - he can’t tell if it’s genuine or not but it doesn’t matter - and he asks Dean if he wants it.

Dean nods and says, ‘This isn’t as bad as i thought it would be.’

Seth moves up real fast to hand the joint to Dean and as he’s doing it, he brushes the tip against Dean’s arm and Dean breathes in sharp with the small burn but Seth laughs like it’s an accident and cuts off the tension before it even begins. And then it’s just Dean and Seth and Dean taking things too seriously and Seth gets to be all smiles again but the room breathes slow and unsure between them -- and they smoke in silence for a long time again but Seth is unsatisfied.

 

\--  
(Dean)  
\--  
  


Dean is very stoned.  
Not as stoned as Seth obviously is - lightweight tender-evil Seth - but still, Dean is very stoned.  
  
And he’s coming out of serious some dissociation and adrenaline-high, and he feels mixed up weird/guilty and wants to be punished for what happened between him and seth - what he did. And for coming here in the first place. Maybe not even in a physical way, but certainly a comeuppance.

Dean breathes himself back into his accidentally vulnerable, pseudo-martyr, trauma-brained line of thinking. A large part of Dean is more or less incapable of valuing his own well being. And he doesn’t really want to be in that position this time either, although Seth clearly doesn’t mind.

  
But once again, all of this is all already happening, it’s all already started. It’s in place and fits so well and keeps on moving and there’s nothing either of them can do about it. Seth physically intimidates Dean, burns him with the tip of the joint like a flirtation but it is only for a second and he doesn’t think much of it. Seth just plays everything cool afterwards, smoothes the edges of everything back down. It’s all a joke to Seth just as soon as Dean is baited and triggered and Seth switches up the vibe of everything (clearly in control, it’s fine this way).

Seth offers to clean up Dean’s hand and his voice is cool and even and he asks for some help cleaning up his damage too, ya know, for old time’s sake. and Dean, Dean stamps what’s left of the joint out and just agrees.

Seth takes Dean’s hand, the fucked up one, between both of his and kind of leads dean into the bathroom of the hotel room - an action would clearly be too corny, too by-the-book even for Seth if it weren’t for everything else. Seth gently pulls on Dean’s hand, gently squeezes around his split and bruised knuckles real light but it still hurts him and Dean smiles because of the pain and because it’s Seth and he has to actively tell himself that it doesn’t mean anything at all.

\--  
(Seth)  
\--  
  
Seth leads Dean into the bathroom, and Dean sits on the big oversized counter between the two little sinks while Seth kind of very hurriedly gets things together.

They bring some of the joints that Dean rolled in the bathroom with them.

Seth gets a bunch of clean hotel towels, fills one of the bathroom sinks with hot water, and gets into his travel bag for a small first aid kit that’s got bandages and gauze and antiseptic and safety scissors and other stuff that Seth doesn’t want Dean to see or know about.

Seth then cleans and wraps Dean’s hand, which is really fucked up and split open and Dean definitely needs to see a doctor at this point but he probably won’t until much later. Seth knows that too which is why he wanted / needed to do this. Seth does it slow and deliberate and quiet and it takes a long time. The two of them smoke throughout this and then alternate using the sink and the supplies for their own other open wounds from that morning and the night and days before.

There is kind of this weird moment in the bathroom of them dressing their own wounds (self inflicted and otherwise) and that towel that seth used for his hair and Dean used for his bloody hand is there and the bathroom is smokey and steamy and smells like weed and Seth and Dean and Seth’s conditioner and sweat and blood and Dean can’t help himself ---

“Here, uh, want to let me do it???”

Dean asks Seth if he can help him w/ his and Seth nods right away. So, he cleans the cuts on seth’s face and the blood from around his mouth and nose and neck. Dean mentions that Seth should probably take his blood covered shirt off, half joking, and of course Seth refuses even though he knows he’s gonna change clothes in five minutes anyway.

 

Dean presses his luck and asks if he can at least clean off some of the blood from Seth’s neck / arms - just in case -  and Seth says ‘sure, weird but, whatever’, and when Dean does and it draws attention to the obvious self harm scars on Seth’s arms.

“I didn’t know you were doing this again, either though, Seth.” Dean says and its disappointment but something else in his tone and Seth cringes but Dean doesn’t stop touching him.

Dean traces Seth’s self harm marks with is fingers, over the new ones and old ones, and Seth’s breath flutters and Dean asks him why he’s doing it.

  
Seth brushes Dean’s hands away but it doesn’t do any good, it’s too personal already and this is only worse. “Things aren’t as good as they look, ya know.” Seth says “And besides you’re drinking again and god knows what else and look at your fucking hand, dude, it’s not like you can really talk when it comes to this kind of shit. It takes all kinds.”

Dean nods and says he understands but then digs his nails into Seth’s flesh a little bit and twists his arm a little too and holds it in place, firm but not threatening and Seth hates how comfortable he is with all this.

And now Dean’s voice is going a mile a minute and he’s talking about Hunter and Dean is obviously disgusted and spits when he says Hunter’s name.

Dean talks about Hunter and Seth, the two of them together, and asks point blank if Seth gets in trouble for cutting himself because Hunter needs to keep Seth pretty and valuable and not marked up and will do anything to keep it that way. Dean talks about how Hunter needs to protect his property, Seth, his golden boy. Dean talks about how Seth needs his ass kicked bad and wonders out loud if Hunter is gonna kick his ass that way when he finds out about all this, worse than what Dean had done to him just a little bit ago. Squeezing his arm, not letting Seth look away, Dean doesn’t mean to be so mean. But he mentions how nice it is when Seth bleeds, and how he’d like to make him bleed some more.

Seth thinks -  maybe just for a second - that Dean is going to use his fingernails to open up one of Seth’s fresher cuts, but he doesn’t. Dean just mentions that he’s probably fucked up all Hunter’s plans with Seth for a few days because of the split lip, wonders how they’re gonna explain it away on-air.  And Seth is burning and it is obvious that they both want each other / want to hurt each other and that it’s hard for either of them to show any restraint.

Dean tries to go on and dig that hole deeper, keep putting Hunter’s name in has mouth, but Seth won’t let him finish. Seth is actually pissed now. He’s so angry his skin feels raw and there’s really no stopping what’s coming.

And then there is nothing but Seth pulling Dean up off the bathroom counter by his hair.

He backs Dean against the wall with enough force to make him gasp out loud, then chokes  Dean out for a second and knees him hard in the chest.

“Now you listen here, ambrose,” Seth starts in,  “You think you’re gonna play tough guy, huh, well you got another thing coming.”  

This time there’s a few knees to the chest and gut, and Seth’s voice: ‘I’m the champ, damn it! Who do you think you are? Who do you think you are?”

Seth laughs, and there’s another high knee and he goes to slapping dean.   
“Huh, Dean-o?” Seth slaps him, slaps him, slaps him, squeezes his face between his fingers and his throat beneath his other hand and Dean can feel his ears turn red and maybe he’s blushing and he has to try real hard not to laugh - hard knee again to his chest and seth’s voice again, ‘You like that, don’t you, Dean, huh, you sick fuck, huh, Dean-o, huh?’

\--  
(Dean)  
\--

Dean starts to choke up blood and his mouth is too hot and he’s scared but the fear is stuck in the back of his head. Seth loosens his grip on Dean’s throat and he coughs and there’s blood there of course and he can see that Seth’s irate with it immediately. Dean’s not fighting back, so Seth he hauls back and punches him without really looking and it’s not so bad but it makes Dean’s nose bleed spring red and seth spits on him in disgust.

Dean can’t see straight. There’s tears and he’s smiling laughing dripping blood and Seth kisses him full on, and when he does he has to pin him against the wall because he knows that Dean cannot stand on his own two feet right now.

And then Seth is moving away, letting him go. Dean topples to the floor in a heap and Seth tells him, ‘I’ve really missed you, ya know that.’ And dean is a shaking shivering mess on the floor and Seth is in control, hand-in-glove, and powerful.

Seth says something else terrible and mean but Dean can’t hear it.   
Everything is good and disgusting all over again; when Seth hurts Dean he laughs and smiles and not only does he look happier than he has since dean’s been in that hotel room, when seth hurts dean he looks happier than he’s been in months and months

 

 ****  
  



End file.
